We Always Have Joy

In his new book, Joyful Wisdom, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche shows us how to discover the joy and awareness that are never affected by life’s ups and downs. We Always Have Joy WHEN I’m TEACHING in front of large groups, I often confront a rather embarrassing problem. My throat gets dry as I talk, so I tend to drain my glass of water pretty early on in the teaching session. Invariably, people notice that my glass is empty and they very kindly refill it. As I continue to speak, my throat gets dry, I drink the en- tire glass of water, and sooner or later, someone refills my PH O T glass again. I go on talking or answering questions, and O BY again someone refills my glass. BILL After some time—usually before the teaching period R is scheduled to end—I become aware of a rather uncom- ATHJE fortable feeling, and a thought crosses my mind: Oh dear, there’s an hour left for this session and I have to pee. I talk a little bit more, answer some questions, and glance at my watch. Now there’s forty-five minutes left and I really have to pee. Half an hour passes and the urge to pee really becomes intense. Someone raises his hand and asks, “What is the difference between pure awareness and conditioned awareness?” The question goes to the heart of the Buddha’s teaching about the third noble truth. Often translated as “the truth of cessation,” this third insight into the nature of experience tells us that the various forms of suffering we experience can be brought to an end. But by now I REALLY, REALLY have to pee. PHOTO BY MARVIN MoorE 42 SHAMBHALA SUN MAY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN MAY 2009 43 So I tell him, “This is a great secret, which I’ll tell you after a BUDD H A NAT UR E look like ants, or your own breathlessness at standing so high short break.” above the ground. But it still wouldn’t communicate the depth With all the dignity I can summon, I get up off the chair where When you are living in darkness, why don’t you look for the light? and breadth of your experience. I’ve been sitting, slowly pass through rows of people bowing, and — THE DHAMMAPADA, translated by Eknath Easwaran Though buddhanature defies description, the Buddha did finally get to a bathroom. provide some clues in the way of signposts or maps that can help Now, peeing may not be anyone’s idea of an enlightening ex- In order to explain this more clearly I have to cheat a little bit, direct us toward that supremely inexpressible experience. One of perience, but I can tell you that once I empty my bladder, I recog- bringing up a subject that the Buddha never explicitly men- the ways in which he described it was in terms of three qualities: nize that the deep sense of relief I feel in that moment is a good tioned in his teachings of the first turning of the wheel. But as a boundless wisdom, which is the capacity to know anything and analogy for the third noble truth: that relief was with me all the number of my teachers have admitted, this subject is implied in everything—past, present, and future; infinite capability, which 1 time as what you might call a basic condition. I just didn’t recog- the first and second turnings. It isn’t as if he was holding back on consists of an unlimited power to raise ourselves and other beings nize it because it was temporarily obscured by all that water. But some great revelation that would only be passed on to the best from any condition of suffering; and immeasurable loving-kindness afterwards, I was able to recognize it and appreciate it. and brightest of his students. Rather, like a responsible teacher, and compassion, a limitless sense of relatedness to all creatures, an The Buddha referred to this dilemma with a somewhat more he focused first of all on teaching basic principles before mov- open-heartedness toward others that serves as a motivation to cre- dignified analogy in which he compared this basic nature to the ing on to more advanced subjects. Ask any elementary school ate the conditions that enable all beings to flourish. sun. Though it’s always shining, the sun is often obscured by teacher about the practicality of teaching calculus to children Undoubtedly, there are many people who fervently believe in clouds. Yet we can only really see the clouds because the sun is who haven’t yet mastered the basics of addition, subtraction, di- the Buddha’s description and the possibility that, through study illuminating them. In the same way, our basic nature is always vision, or multiplication. and practice, they can realize a direct experience of unlimited present. It is, in fact, what allows us to discern even those things The subject is buddhanature—which doesn’t refer to the be- wisdom, capability, and compassion. There are probably many that obscure it: an insight that may be best understood by return- flections.T hey don’t alter the nature of that which reflects them. PH havior or attitude of someone who walks around in colored others who think it’s just a bunch of nonsense. O T ing to the question raised just before I left for the bathroom. The crystal ball is essentially colorless. OS robes, begging for food! Buddha is a Sanskrit term that might be Similarly, pure awareness in itself is always clear, capable of BY roughly translated as “one who is awake.” As a formal title, it usu- LI T WO T Y PE S O F AWA R ENE S S reflecting anything, even misconceptions about itself as limited Z ally refers to Siddhartha Gautama, the young man who achieved A MATTHE or conditioned. Just as the sun illuminates the clouds that ob- enlightenment twenty-five hundred years ago in Bodhgaya. The essence of every thought that arises is pristine awareness. scure it, pure awareness enables us to experience natural suffer- Buddhanature, however, is not a formal title. It’s not a charac- —PENGAR JAMPHEL SANGPO ing and the relentless drama of self-created suffering: me versus WS teristic exclusive to the historical Buddha or to Buddhist practi- Short Invocation of Vajradhara, translated by Maria Montenegro you, mine versus yours, this feeling versus that feeling, good ver- tioners. It’s not something created or imagined. It’s the heart or sus bad, pleasant versus unpleasant, or a desperate longing for essence inherent in all living beings: an unlimited potential to Actually there’s no great secret to understanding the difference change versus an equally frantic hope for permanence. do, see, hear, or experience anything. Because of buddhanature between pure awareness and conditioned awareness. They’re The truth of cessation is often described as a final release from we can learn, we can grow, we can change. We can become bud- both awareness, which might be roughly defined as a capacity fixation, craving, or “thirst.”H owever, while the term “cessation” dhas in our own right. N to recognize, register, and in a sense, “catalogue” every moment seems to imply something different or better than our present Buddhanature can’t be described in terms of relative concepts. ISSO B of experience. experience, it is actually a matter of acknowledging the potential Y It has to be experienced directly, and direct experience is impos- E S Pure awareness is like a ball of clear crystal—colorless in it- already inherent within us. A sible to define in words. Imagine looking at a place so vast that C self but capable of reflecting anything: your face, other people, Cessation—or relief from suffering—is possible because aware- BY it surpasses our ability to describe it—the Grand Canyon, for O walls, furniture. If you moved it around a little, maybe you’d see ness is fundamentally clear and unconditioned. Fear, shame, guilt, T example. You could say that it’s big, that the stone walls on either O different parts of the room and the size, shape, or position of greed, competitiveness, and so on are simply veils, perspectives in- PH side are sort of red, and that the air is dry and smells faintly like the furniture might change. If you took it outside, you could see herited and reinforced by our cultures, our families, and personal cedar. But no matter how well you describe it, your description The view from the top of Taipei 101 trees, birds, flowers—even the sky! Whatever appears, though, experience. Suffering recedes, according to the third noble truth, can’t really encompass the experience of being in the presence of are only reflections.T hey don’t really exist inside the ball, nor do to the extent that we let go of the whole framework of grasping. something so vast. Or you could try describing the view from the Oddly enough, in many of the sutras, the Buddha seems to have they alter its essence in any way. We accomplish this, not by suppressing our desire, our aver- observatory of the Taipei 101, one of the world’s tallest buildings, enjoyed engaging in conversation with the people who doubted Now, suppose the crystal ball were wrapped in a piece of sions, our fixations, or trying to “think differently,” but rather hailed as one of the “seven wonders of the modern world.” You what he had to say. He was, after all, only one of many teachers colored silk.

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